Indicators for Sustainability Assessment in the Procurement of Civil. . .
107
2.1 Development of Indicators
The goals defined in the German Sustainability Strategy address different problem
areas in Germany and were not developed for a specific sector or a company. For
example: The German SDG 6 (ensure availability and water sustainable management of water and sanitation for) contains three indicators which are focusing on
water quality (phosphor and nitrate) and on access to drinking water. But for the
procurement of civil engineering projects in the public sector other aspects need
to be considered (e.g. cost of the plant, safety of worker). Thus, indicators of the
German Sustainability Strategy need a specification before they can be applied
in the assessment of the procurement process Instead of relying solely on the
Sustainable Development (SDG)-indicators this approach will, as a first step, take
other indicators into consideration. Those indicators should add technical, waterand BWB-related aspects to ensure the sectoral focus. By adding other indicators, a
base-set of indicators is created (see Table 1). This base-set with over 150 indicators
contains various kinds of aspects, which are of different relevance in the civil
engineering service in the BWB.
For a practical application of the Multi-indicator system (MIS) the number of
target indicators needs to be decreased. Consequently, the next step should be
to narrow down the base set to indicators with a specific relevance in the civil
engineering service.
To identify the indicators with the highest relevance a workshop with the main
contributing departments in the BWB was held. This collective selection round
together with PB, EK and the department of strategy could highlight the most
relevant topics. Each participant was given the same number of votes. With this
workshop a new set of indicators was created, which are here defined as “theoretical
target indicators”.
Since the indicators are from different sources, most of them have different
degree of detail and may contextually overlap. Every indicator from the set of the
theoretical target indicators was therefore reassessed. To ensure the practicability
every indicator should have a direct causal relation or a short chain of causation
(Pankow 2018; Mischke 2017). The theoretical target indicators could be reduced to
Table 1 overview of frameworks for a base-set of indicators
National framework
- Sustainable Development Goals of Germany
Technical framework
- VDI-Indicators of the technical assessment guideline
- NaCoSi-Indicators for the sustainability controlling of
residential water management systems
Regional framework
- Administrative provision procurement and environment
(VwVBU)
- Order and procurement regulations of Berlin
Legal framework
- Procurement regulations
- Environmental regulations
Company intern framework
- Sustainability indicators of the company
107
2.1 Development of Indicators
The goals defined in the German Sustainability Strategy address different problem
areas in Germany and were not developed for a specific sector or a company. For
example: The German SDG 6 (ensure availability and water sustainable management of water and sanitation for) contains three indicators which are focusing on
water quality (phosphor and nitrate) and on access to drinking water. But for the
procurement of civil engineering projects in the public sector other aspects need
to be considered (e.g. cost of the plant, safety of worker). Thus, indicators of the
German Sustainability Strategy need a specification before they can be applied
in the assessment of the procurement process Instead of relying solely on the
Sustainable Development (SDG)-indicators this approach will, as a first step, take
other indicators into consideration. Those indicators should add technical, waterand BWB-related aspects to ensure the sectoral focus. By adding other indicators, a
base-set of indicators is created (see Table 1). This base-set with over 150 indicators
contains various kinds of aspects, which are of different relevance in the civil
engineering service in the BWB.
For a practical application of the Multi-indicator system (MIS) the number of
target indicators needs to be decreased. Consequently, the next step should be
to narrow down the base set to indicators with a specific relevance in the civil
engineering service.
To identify the indicators with the highest relevance a workshop with the main
contributing departments in the BWB was held. This collective selection round
together with PB, EK and the department of strategy could highlight the most
relevant topics. Each participant was given the same number of votes. With this
workshop a new set of indicators was created, which are here defined as “theoretical
target indicators”.
Since the indicators are from different sources, most of them have different
degree of detail and may contextually overlap. Every indicator from the set of the
theoretical target indicators was therefore reassessed. To ensure the practicability
every indicator should have a direct causal relation or a short chain of causation
(Pankow 2018; Mischke 2017). The theoretical target indicators could be reduced to
Table 1 overview of frameworks for a base-set of indicators
National framework
- Sustainable Development Goals of Germany
Technical framework
- VDI-Indicators of the technical assessment guideline
- NaCoSi-Indicators for the sustainability controlling of
residential water management systems
Regional framework
- Administrative provision procurement and environment
(VwVBU)
- Order and procurement regulations of Berlin
Legal framework
- Procurement regulations
- Environmental regulations
Company intern framework
- Sustainability indicators of the company